5Oscar Wilde

1、Oscar wilde (1854-1900),The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Soleme(1893) Lady Windermeres Fan(1892) An Ideal Husband(1895) The Importance of Being Earnest(1895) (Poem) The Ballad of Reading Gaol,“art for arts sake.”,Wildes exotic appearancelong hair, knee breeches, lily in handlead to his nickname : t

2、he “apostle of Aestheticism.”,Keller cartoon from the Wasp of San Francisco depicting Wilde on the occasion of his visit there in 1882.,George Bernard Shaws review,.Mr Wilde is to me our only serious playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors, with audie

3、nce, with the whole theatre.,a public figure,Critics who reviewed the volume of his poems were divided in their opinions, as they generally are.,Salome: A Wildean Symbolist Drama,To many, Wildes willingness to appropriate themes and treatments of the Salome legend from other authors of the period is

4、 a shortcoming; Wildes play is labeled as derivative or a mere imitation.,For others, it is precisely this fusion of different sources which gives strength to the drama, and Wilde is hailed as creative, innovative, and modern.,the Symbolist and Decadent aspects of Salome as well as the dramas litera

5、ry-historical background,since it is in the subversive treatment of symbolic representation that Wildes drama reveals itself to be unique.,Salome: The Renunciation of Language,Wilde wrote Salome while living in Paris in December of 1891. His allegiance to the French Symbolists and Decadents had been

6、 firmly established, and he had become friends with some of the more prominent poets in Paris.,asked the leader of the orchestra to play some music which might evoke a woman dancing in her bare feet in the blood of a man she has craved for and slain.,Wilde wrote French as he spoke it - that is, char

7、mingly, but simply and somewhat in the manner of the phrasebook.,The English edition of Salome,was translated by Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893, although there was some contention at the time, as Wilde objected to the schoolboy faults of Douglas attempt.,Salome is art.,Born as she was out of a mixture

8、of painting and literature, she incarnates the essence of art, and proves this on several occasions in the drama.,1.,When she dances and removes the seven veils, she is left not naked, but bejeweled, her body turning into a living work of art. Herods gaze is that of the spectator, the audience for w

9、hom she then dances and performs.,2.,Her ambiguity, her placement between eroticism and chastity, is that of the artwork itself: lifeless, yet infused with an artificial sensuality.,3.,She is, as we have seen, an artist as well: she creates and destroys, but is in the end herself a creation who meet

10、s with destruction.,question of Wildes originality (1),his use of simple language to be a precursor of later models, such as the absurd theater Wildes true creativity in his efforts to mix the styles and subjects of other writers”,(2),There is something unsatisfying, though, in claiming originality

11、through creative imitation, and Praz dutifully notes that, as generally happens with specious second-hand works, it was precisely Wildes Salome which became popular.,Wilde and the Symbolist Movement in Literature,tenets of the Symbolist movement a belief in the importance of poetry: they held that l

12、iterature should concern itself with creating links, through symbolic language, to the ideals of a different, often transcendental reality.,marked contrast to,the Naturalist school, against whose reality-based simplicity of language the Symbolists were revolting; the traditional poetic realism of th

13、e nineteenth century, whose superficiality and tranquility the Symbolists abhorred.,Symbolists view of language.,Words are quite simply symbols, and can be used to mirror, distort, or otherwise represent whatever reality the poet chooses. Although words have no inherent superiority, they are the onl

14、y vehicle the poet has for the expression of his truth; thus language - each individual word itself - is of primary importance to the Symbolist author.,Poetry must only suggest,never describe or explain. By doing so, it can hope to establish, even to make the reader recognize those links which hold

15、the world together: the transcendental reality.,the Decadents,drew their inspiration from many of the same sources as the Symbolists, such as the poems of Baudelaire and the dramas of Maeterlinck.,on the importance of art for its own sake. Art must be independent of moral and social concerns, they b

16、elieved, and must concentrate on style above all else.,The inspiration for Decadent art,was to be found in aestheticism, the cultivation of an ideal art, a new form of beauty Decadent poets, then, did not shy away from shocking or scandalous themes: they took interest in all expressions of human emo

17、tion, both the traditionally acceptable as well as the perverse and immoral.,mixture of styles,Salome continues Wildes tradition of Decadent art; at the same time, though, it calls certain aspects of Symbolism into being, leading to an interesting mixture of styles.,Symbolist and Decadent Moments in

18、 Salome,symbolist drama - how Wilde seems interested in exploring the outer margins of human experience, the margins at which the continuum of human experience makes contact at one end with religious transcendence and at the other with raw animality.,Other critics find that the tone and plot of the

19、play undercut the symbolism, leading to the conclusion that Salome is a brilliant pastiche of turn-of-the-century Decadent art,Salome is the incarnate spirit of the aesthetic woman: remote, desirable, a rapacious belle dame sans merci from whom no man is safe . but, at the same time, a creature whic

20、h can be destroyed as easily as it is made.,A young handsome man who sells his soul to a picture to have eternal youth and beauty, only to face the hideousness of his own portrait as it ages, which entails his evil nature and degradation. Basil Hallward Dorian Gray Lord Henry,The Picture of Dorian G

21、ray,Nature ,no less than life, is an imitation of art. Art is above life Dorian Gray nature/life Picture art This reversion tells that he more the picture reflects reality, the uglier it becomes 艺术越反映现实，艺术就越远离美,Aestheticism in this story,Aestheticism in this story,一切坏的艺术都是返归生活和自然造成的，并且是将生活与自然上升到理想的结

22、果.艺术与现实不能共存 Syble Vane a medium of art “I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I can not mimic one that burns me like fire.” Abandoned killed herself,Homosexual content,Hallward projection of Wilde “love that does not speak his name” -Dorians interior monologue about Hallwards love for him,

23、As his only novel, it caused controversy as the book evidently attacked the hypocrisy of England and was later used as incriminating evidence at Oscar Wildes trial, on the basis of its evident homosexual content,Projection,Hallward and Lord Henry personify two different aspects of Wildes personality

24、. Hallwards fascination with Dorian anticipates Wildes fascination with Lord Alfred Douglas .Hallward is an artist whose best work stems from a passion for a young man whom he sees as a Prince of Life. Lord Henry He is the carrier of Wildes extravagant personality and wit and a conversationalist who

25、 cuts life to pieces with his epigrams,Conclusion,As a proponent of aestheticism, Oscar Wilde injected life into the19thC British literature by demonstrating to us that a fresh perspective featuring a stylistic appeal could be introduced to literary creation and that the same social illness and huma

26、n weakness can be portrayed in this unique way with the same sarcastic effect. Both his works and the style should be recommended to the public against todays commercialized social background.,A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. Oscar Wilde,A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her. Oscar Wilde,Always forgive your enemies; not